With hindsight, we see that the Soviet Union never had a chance of world domination, but we didn’t know that then.

Americans talked about voters the same way Russians talked about Stalin. They had to be obeyed.

Movies have influenced all writers, not just thriller writers.

Everything in Tom’s cathedral looked as if it was meant to be. Perhaps her life was like that, everything foreordained in a grand design, and she was like a foolish builder who wanted a waterfall...

An awful lot of thriller writers write women rather badly. So just doing it OK gets a lot of credit.

Fear could paralyse. Action was the antidote.

politicians often had the knack of seeming to know everyone intimately. Either they had remarkable memories, or their secretaries reminded them efficiently.

Monks committed all the same sins that ordinary people did. He had just been shocked by the woman’s shamelessness. The sight of her nakedness remained with him, the way the hot heart of a candle...

It pleased Aliena that they were all together: she and Jack and their children, and Jack’s mother, and Aliena’s brother, and Martha. It was quite like an ordinary family, and Aliena could almost forget that...

My favorite period is World War II, and I’m in the middle of writing my fourth novel set in that era.

A chill December morning dawned, with rags and tatters of mist hanging on the trees like poor people’s washing.

Be a perfectionist.

The first casualty of a civil war was justice, Philip had realized.

How terrible, Jack thought, to be old and know that your life has been wasted.

And where are you going?” His voice was playfully challenging. “To get some breakfast,” she said without stopping.He leered. “I’ve got something for you to eat,” he called after her.”I might bite it off, though,”...

Aliena’s brother, Richard, sometimes reminded her of her father, with a look or a gesture, and that was when she felt a surge of affection.

The CIA’s research program is described in a book called The Search for the Manchurian Candidate.

Why do you have to be the same as the others? …Most of them are stupid.

Culture clash is terrific drama.

Since Lenin died, every Soviet leader had been a liar. They had all glossed over what was wrong and declined to acknowledge reality. The most striking characteristic of Soviet leadership for the last sixty-five year...

When you’re about to be turned down, go for a postponement.

Most rich people have a gangster in their ancestry somewhere.